Criticisms for Martin Scorsese

The Art Directors Guild has issued a statement criticizing Martin Scorsese for promoting a company that develops artificial intelligence.

The legendary director was recently featured as an advisor for Black Forest Labs' AI product FLUX. In promotional materials, he talked about the possibilities of using the program to create storyboards (visual representations of scenes before filming).

“Remember, film is a young medium, only about 125 years old, so we have to be open to the ways in which it can evolve,” Scorsese said at the time.

His appearance in the campaign prompted the Art Directors Guild, which represents a wide range of graphic artists in the film industry, including storyboard artists, to issue a statement titled: “Mr. Scorsese, the job is not in Flux.”

"Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese is turning his back on the human artists who helped him create some of his most famous works throughout his career," the statement said, recalling that Scorsese asked the question in a promotional video:

“How do you convey what you see in your head to the actors and film crew?”.

According to them, he then presents generative AI as a solution to jobs traditionally performed by members of the Art Directors Guild Local 800 union - artists and designers who have collaborated with directors on film visualization for decades.

"By promoting a generative AI product, Mr. Scorsese is bypassing the contributions of art directors, graphic artists, illustrators, production designers, set designers, set designers, and other talented union professionals," the statement said.

The association also claims that generative artificial intelligence can only produce such results because it has been trained on vast amounts of copyrighted works.

“AI can only create this kind of ‘film intelligence’ by using vast amounts of copyrighted works, likely taken from the internet without consent, attribution, compensation or transparency. The skills of the artists and designers of the Art Directors Guild Local 800 bring the highest level of value to any film or television production.” To think that their professional contributions can be imitated or surpassed by generative AI, which is built on works likely taken from them and many other artists around the world, is a betrayal of the collaborative nature of film,” the members of the Art Directors Guild conclude.